As I mentioned in the mchat yesterday, I'm working on a series of 200-odd test points to gage the effect airspeed and altitude have on throttle in straight and level flight (autopilot #2). The goal is to predict the maximum range or best speed/ altitude to fly at to reach a destination the fastest and turn it into a useful tool for long-range civilian flights.

Now on to my request.

I am wondering if there is any documentation as to what the various parameters in the .YFS file are. If the throttle position is included in these, I would love to know, as I am introducing some error with my current method of getting the throttle percent. (Take a screenshot and measure the ration of pixels covered/uncovered by the throttle indicator)

Hmmm...I can't remember much off the top of my mind about the yfs files. But, probably tomorrow, I will study the yfs file some more. Right now ,though, I've got to study for school...not yfs files
I might write the document also.

#NOTES
Note 1: Launch velocity: Bullets have a value of 1700, all other weapons have a value that is the aircraft velocity at launch, in m/s
Note 2: Missile velocity appears for missiles and rockets, not bombs. The numbers after only appear for guided weapons. (Missile final velocity)
* Aircraft number is assigned, starting with 0, in order of listing (See top) [IDANDTAG #-1]

I am an accountant working full-time (and some). I'm not here as often as I would like to be. Send a message if you need me. There are a few people in the community who can get in contact with me urgently if you need - don't be afraid to ask. I just don't check here as frequently as I used to. Sorry!

Thanks for the info guys! This is super helpful. I noticed that in some tests the throttle would fluctuate and a single image wouldn't get that very well. The .yfs throttle lets me average the throttle level over a cycle, getting good data!

@ Flake, Just a note about the throttle level. It seems that the .yfs file only allows 0-99 for that entry. I had a ground test at mil power and it read 99 rather than 100.

I'm saving the .yfs files now. In the future I may make a tool that will allow me to extract all kinds of information to examine flaps, brake, gear performance, etc.

One interesting thing I found while trying to find the max speed (By starting above it and then going into autopilot) was that the autopilot only commanded 98, but I could take control and command 99 throttle level.

Because of the fluctuating throttle I decided to go back and redo the points I already got, and the extra practice I have now helped me get the points much faster.

This is interesting! Possibly the basis for a piggyback program that involves missions / credits / buying better planes and weapons with credits etc... A sense of CONTINUITY rather than a series of random flights. For single player, of course...

By the way, does anyone know what the KILLCREDIT 1 5 number represent? They don't seem to correlate... will check it out.

I'm working on a new effort to understand lift and drag. I've done some better preparation and right now I'm writing a test plan and working on figuring out what data I actually need and how to reduce errors. I am writing a longish (already 15 pages of content with a few for titles and lists) document with my preparation, plan and results.

I wrote a python code to calculate a whole mess of parameters from the YFS file (such as Angle of Attack and Angle of Side Slip and their first and second derivatives) so I plan on modifying that code to calculate only the small subset of parameters I actually need for the different test objectives.

If someone would like to help develop the plan and do some of the test flights, please contact me via PM so we can discuss things. Looking ahead I know this will be an intensive project.

Pardon the additional Necro, but with the compilation of information in my YFS2CSV program I thought I'd directly share the information about the YFS parameters that are stored in the YFS File. Please not that this takes largely from Waspe414's post and is expanded in areas to indicate directions and values for certain things.

Ooooh that's real clever, I didn't know you could set the light source direction so accurately. Is this a 2015+/OpenGL2 variable or can we use that in 2011 and back?

My understanding is that this sets the light source direction, not the lighting type. Sadly, only way to set day/night is on an open source server.

I am an accountant working full-time (and some). I'm not here as often as I would like to be. Send a message if you need me. There are a few people in the community who can get in contact with me urgently if you need - don't be afraid to ask. I just don't check here as frequently as I used to. Sorry!

I am running the 20150425 windows version of YSF.
The LIGHTSRCD variable is in the flight.cfg file.
It's where all the settings are saved from options>config.
And that's the problem.
Every time I change an option the lightsrcd gets reset to one of the preset choices and I have to edit flight.cfg to put my value back in. That is why I am looking for an alternate way to set it.